After completing the program, he began his career by spending a number of years in sales. Most positions required travel throughout the country, and he spent valuable time as a salesman for a watchcase manufacturer, John Dueber.
While traveling, Webb began to look for a location to open a jewelry store. He finally decided to settle in Cleveland, Ohio. In March 1879, he purchased an interest in the firm of Whitcomb and Metten, a store where he had previously worked as a clerk. He quickly bought out Metten's interest and with his partner founded the Whitcomb and Ball Jewelry Store. Later that year, he bought out Whitcomb to establish the Webb C. Ball Company. The store was located in an excellent location on the corner of Seneca and Superior Streets, the center of the Cleveland business district.
In the early years, Webb C. Ball was recognized as having an interest in accurate time, so when Standard Time was adopted in 1883 and the service of the Naval Observatory in Washington became available, Mr. Ball was the first Cleveland jeweler to use the time signals, bringing accurate time to Cleveland. He also had been credited with bringing the first chronometer to Cleveland, which was on display in his store window. For many years, as people walked past his store, they would pull out their watches and set the time.
In time, the phrase “Ball'S TIME” came to mean the absolute correct time all over Northern Ohio.
At his death in 1922, Mr. Webb C. Ball, of Cleveland, was the General Time Inspector for more than 125'000 miles of railroad in the United States, Canada and Mexico, having contributed more than any other man to establishing the requirements and rate of accuracy of watches used in the railroad service.
Railroad watches are a popular specialty for collectors of American watches. That is not difficult to understand. Railroad watches are often representatives of a manufacturer's best work; they are usually high-graded time, beautifully finished, accurate timekeepers.
Collector interest in the American pocket watch often includes its association with the railroad industry. A fascinating aspect of this history is the many, and sometimes spectacular, train wrecks. In the year before the Kipton, Ohio, wreck of April 18, 1891, 6,335 people were killed and 35,362 injured on American railroads.
